Sandra Lee on a Loggins Life Lesson

What a hard-knocks kid and future celebrity chef heard in a 1991 single

Jan. 17, 2014 9:54 p.m. ET

Ms. Lee, 47, is host of TV's "Semi-Homemade Cooking" and is editor in chief of Sandra Lee magazine. She spoke with reporter Marc Myers.

Most people know me as the host of culinary and lifestyle TV shows, but I actually began my career in the late 1980s inventing home and garden products for big-box retailers. In 1991, I was living in the Marina del Rey area of Los Angeles when I bought Kenny Loggins's album "Leap...